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© 2002,
Architectural Energy Corporation.
All Rights Reserved.
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 Funded
by California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy
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P2-4. Demonstration of the Whole
Building Diagnostician > Background
Developed by the
DOE's Pacific Northwest
Laboratory (operated
by Battelle), with
Honeywell,
Inc. and the University
of Colorado, the
WBD is a production-prototype
software package
with two modules
providing automated
diagnostics
for buildings based
on data collected
by
direct-digital control
(DDC) systems. These
tools are incorporated
within the WBD's
user
interface and data
and process management
infrastructure.
The WBD is a pre-commercial,
production-prototype
software package
that connects to
digital
control systems (e.g.
energy management
systems),
utilizing data from
the control system's
sensors to analyze
overall building
and system
performance. It currently
consists of two
diagnostic tools,
or modules, with
a user
interface designed
to readily identify
problems
and provide potential
solutions to building
operators. The Outdoor-Air/Economizer
module
(OAE), the subject
of this project,
diagnoses
whether each air
handler in a building
is
supplying adequate
outdoor air for the
occupants
it is designed to
serve, by time of
day and
day of week. It also
determines whether
the
economizer is providing
free cooling with
outside air when
appropriate and not
wasting
energy by supplying
excess outside air.
In
addition to the two
diagnostic modules,
the
WBD also has a data
collection module
to
automatically retrieve
data from some building
automation systems.
Early experience with the WBD tool in new and existing buildings in Washington
and California has confirmed the broadly held suspicion that problems with
outside air economizers are endemic: the tool discovered problems in 29
of 30 air handlers examined in both existing and newly commissioned buildings.
Over half of the 29 air handling units contributed a significant energy
waste costing over $500/yr.
The WBD also contains
a Whole Building Efficiency
(WBE) module that
monitors whole building
or subsystem (end-use)
performance at high
levels. It does this
by tracking expected
and actual consumption
as a function of time
of day, day of week,
and weather conditions.
Using these data,
it automatically constructs
a model based on
actual past system performance
in a baseline period
and then alerts the
user when performance
is no longer as good
as past performance.
The WBE module was not
part of the Project
2.4 demonstration, but
enhancements to it
were the focus of Project
2.6.
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